Me in Place

This is my Christmas cactus:

I bought him off a discount shelf at Jewel about four years ago. I paid a quarter. He’s happy. He’s not big, but he blooms every six months or so. I thought his weird off-white/pinkish flowers were nice and brought some happiness to the gloomy winter weather.

Then I saw my mother-in-law’s. This is hers:

Bless that woman, she can get a rock to bloom. What do you think I should do? Throw away my little quarter find?

Nope. And it never does you any good to compare yourself to others either. (Comparing and wishing they were something other than what they were is what started this whole mess with Adam and Eve.)

Reminds me of a favorite quote of mine:

There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly becomes any of us
To talk about the rest of us.
~Edward Wallis Hoch

“Now is the time to give me roses, not to keep them for my grave to
come. Give them to me while my heart beats, give them today while my
heart yearns for jubilee. Now is the time…”( -Mzwakhe Mbuli )
No, I’m not pleading for flowers, I just thought the quote was beautiful and it is a good reminder for us to be a source of comfort and love to those around us NOW.

Paul says in I Corinthians 9, that man “should give what he has decided in his heart to give,” because generosity starts in the heart.

“The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.”

-Augustine

From Founding Father: George Washington Rediscovered – (The best paragraph of the book and I wanted to remember it):

“…But real politeness is always more than mere. It acknowledges the importance of someone else’s rights and point of view. Similarly, moderation can represent more than indifference, impotence or weakness of mind. It can signify the desire to bring others along, because you need or respect them, instead of ramming something down their throats. Washington’s moderation and political cordiality were his final service to the convention. “

“He hated himself for hoping, but he hated himself for not hoping at all, too.”

Little Bear: Come on! It will be an adventure!

Duck: Okay. It’s better than sitting on a frozen pond, I guess.

Sarah Groves is one of my favorite songwriters and as I think about heaven, I’m always reminded of her song “What Do I Know.” (If you use iTunes, be sure to download this song, as well as some of her others, including “Going Home.”) Here are the lyrics:
I have a friend who just turned eighty-eight
and she just shared with me that she’s afraid of dying.
I sit here years from her experience
and try to bring her comfort.
I try to bring her comfort
But what do I know? What do I know?
She grew up singing about the glory land,
and she would testify how Jesus changed her life.
It was easy to have faith when she was thirty-four,
but now her friends are dying, and death is at her door.
Oh, and what do I know? Really, what do I know?

I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

She lost her husband after sixty years,
and as he slipped away she still had things to say.
Death can be so inconvenient.
You try to live and love. It comes and interrupts.
And what do I know? What do I know?

I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

But I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be pretty good.
Oh, I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be very good.

I was skimming a book tonight and saw the phrase “mundanities of life.”

I didn’t know mundanities was a word. But I sure feel like mundanities is a word.

Here’s a mundanity: TV is done for the season. All our shows have aired their finales. Flipping through the channels tonight, I skipped over the “When Plastic Surgery Goes Wrong” type shows, checked NASA’s channel again (I keep thinking they might have a special show about “When Astronauts Go Mad”) and I have now settled on the “Resort and Residence Channel.” It’s an infomercial for Bose theater system. Now I’m debating about ordering the soft L shaped pillow that I NEED from a home shopping network.
Please, somebody give me some ideas of shows I should watch! Old ones? New ones? Series?

Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.
-Cary Grant